10.1 Cognitive and Affective

Cognitive and Affective mediators of Advertising Effects

Evaluative responses = attitude

Cognitive approach -> Affective approach (not only comes from cognitive) -> Behavioral approach (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 - theory of planned behavior)

System 2: is kinda of independent of Cognitive, but Affective is system 1.

  • Expanded model added subjective norm

  • (Zajonc 1980)

  • Evaluation from cognitive approach is multi-attribute model

  • Anthony Greenwald: Cognitive Response Theory: what important is what is in the consumer mind when they see the ad.


Conditioning:

  • Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning: physiological automatic reaction occurred after being exposed to an unconditioned stimulus.

  • Evaluative conditioning: direct transfer of affect from one stimulus to another via a conditioning paradigm.


Affective route:

Moods = diffuse, hard to pin down the source, more long-lasting

Emotion = specific, discrete

(Wright 1973)

  • Three modes of spontaneous cognitive responses to advertising stimulus:

    • Counterargument

    • Source Derogation

    • Support Argument

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Situational Factors

  • Content-processing involvement: “stemming from receiver’s perception of the relevancy”

  • Message Modality: audio, print


(Batra and Ray 1986a)

  • Advertising repetition increases brand attitude and purchase intention when support and counter argument production are low; while under high level of such production, brand attitude and purchase intention level off.

  • What happen to make the downturn of advertising repetition earlier or later?

  • Appropriate interval: purchase cycle (number of exposure per purchase cycle). 3 exposures per purchase cycle is the optimal number

  • Wear-in: how many times it takes for the ad to take effect?

  • Wear-out: how many times it takes for the ad to bore you?

    • If you change the ad execution, the wear-out is pushed back.
  • Traditional thoughts advertising repetition would always wear out (inverted-U curve between repetition and impact on customer’s attitude) because of wearout and mere exposure

  • Ability, motivation and opportunity are antecedents of cognitive processing


(Kupor and Tormala 2015)

  • Momentary interruptions can promote persuasion

    • higher for low need for cognitive individuals (motivation to engage in thoughtful processing) than high ones
  • In other words, interruptions can increase consumers’ processing of a message.

  • Interruption amplified arousal (need for completion/ goal pursuit and curiosity)


(Gibson 2008): Affective Responses Mediating Acceptance of Advertising

  • Using Implicit Association Test (???)

  • Evaluative conditioning only influences explicit attitudes when there is no previous strong preference or priori


(Batra and Ray 1986b)

  • Antecedents of attitude towards the ad:

  • Attitude toward the ad leads changes in brand attitudes (MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch 1986; Mitchell and Olson 1981)

  • In low involvement context, execution cues and source likeability (message-oriented and communicator-oriented) have greater impact on persuasion

  • Affect typologies (p. 237)


(Pham, Geuens, and De Pelsmacker 2013)

  • ad-evoked feelings positively influence brand attitudes both directly and indirectly (via changes in attitude toward the ad), regardless of involvement with the product category, products types (e.g., durables, nondurables, services, search or experience goods).

  • This effect is greater among hedonic products than utilitarian ones.


(Holbrook and Batra 1987)

  • emotional reactions mediate the effect of advertising on attitudes toward ad or brand.

  • Why divided two articles? the second study claimed that the last paper’s list of positive affective mediators was limited, the second one expands to range of emotions.

  • Is there a difference between affect and emotions?


(Batra and Ahtola 1991; Voss, Spangenberg, and Grohmann 2003) offer scale to measure the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of consumer attitude


(Dall’Olio and Vakratsas 2022) Effect of Advertising Creative strategy on Advertising Elasticity

  • offer composite metrics that measure aspects of creative strategy

  • Content affect advertising elasticity in the following descending order

    • Experiential content

    • Cognitive content

    • Affective content

References

Batra, Rajeev, and Olli T. Ahtola. 1991. “Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Sources of Consumer Attitudes.” Marketing Letters 2 (2): 159–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00436035.
Batra, Rajeev, and Michael L. Ray. 1986a. “Situational Effects of Advertising Repetition: The Moderating Influence of Motivation, Ability, and Opportunity to Respond.” Journal of Consumer Research 12 (4): 432. https://doi.org/10.1086/208528.
———. 1986b. “Affective Responses Mediating Acceptance of Advertising.” Journal of Consumer Research 13 (2): 234. https://doi.org/10.1086/209063.
Dall’Olio, Filippo, and Demetrios Vakratsas. 2022. “EXPRESS: The Impact of Advertising Creative Strategy on Advertising Elasticity.” Journal of Marketing, January, 002224292210749. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221074960.
Gibson, Bryan. 2008. “Can Evaluative Conditioning Change Attitudes Toward Mature Brands? New Evidence from the Implicit Association Test.” Journal of Consumer Research 35 (1): 178–88. https://doi.org/10.1086/527341.
Holbrook, Morris B., and Rajeev Batra. 1987. “Assessing the Role of Emotions as Mediators of Consumer Responses to Advertising.” Journal of Consumer Research 14 (3): 404. https://doi.org/10.1086/209123.
Kupor, Daniella M., and Zakary L. Tormala. 2015. “Persuasion, Interrupted: The Effect of Momentary Interruptions on Message Processing and Persuasion.” Journal of Consumer Research, May, ucv018. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucv018.
MacKenzie, Scott B., Richard J. Lutz, and George E. Belch. 1986. “The Role of Attitude Toward the Ad as a Mediator of Advertising Effectiveness: A Test of Competing Explanations.” Journal of Marketing Research 23 (2): 130. https://doi.org/10.2307/3151660.
Mitchell, Andrew A., and Jerry C. Olson. 1981. “Are Product Attribute Beliefs the Only Mediator of Advertising Effects on Brand Attitude?” Journal of Marketing Research 18 (3): 318. https://doi.org/10.2307/3150973.
Pham, Michel Tuan, Maggie Geuens, and Patrick De Pelsmacker. 2013. “The Influence of Ad-Evoked Feelings on Brand Evaluations: Empirical Generalizations from Consumer Responses to More Than 1000 TV Commercials.” International Journal of Research in Marketing 30 (4): 383–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2013.04.004.
Voss, Kevin E., Eric R. Spangenberg, and Bianca Grohmann. 2003. “Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Dimensions of Consumer Attitude.” Journal of Marketing Research 40 (3): 310–20. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.40.3.310.19238.
Wright, Peter L. 1973. “The Cognitive Processes Mediating Acceptance of Advertising.” Journal of Marketing Research 10 (1): 53. https://doi.org/10.2307/3149409.
Zajonc, R. B. 1980. “Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences.” American Psychologist 35 (2): 151–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.35.2.151.